‘House of the Dragon’ Trailer: Tensions Flare Between Rhaenyra & Daemon in Season 2 (VIDEO)

The battles will continue in Season 2 of House of the Dragon, the Game of Thrones prequel brought to fans by creator George R.R. Martin, and the war of the great houses will rages on in the first full-length House of the Dragon Season 2 trailer.

Fights on dragon back and family in-fighting with both the Targaryens and Hightowers define the thrilling nearly three-minute trailer dropped on Tuesday, May 14 by HBO (see below). But it’s the tension between Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) and Daemon (Matt Smith) that stands out the most.

“Do you accept me as your queen and ruler?” Rhaenyra asks her husband, her voice shaking. When Daemon can’t answer, her look is one of shock and anger.

House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres Sunday, June 16 at 9/8c on HBO (streaming on Max). In the Season 1 finale, Rhaenyra Targaryen was seen contemplating allegiance to her half-brother, King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney), despite having a claim to the Iron Throne. However, Rhaenyra’s son, Lucerys (Elliot Grihault), was killed by Aegon’s brother, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), which caused colossal conflict and destruction. The battle will reportedly take place over multiple seasons.

But Season 2 is coming, at least, albeit with a shorter season of 8 episodes rather than the 10 we got for the first season. This change will see various story elements, including a big battle sequence initially planned for Season 2, shifted to the potential third season (as of the time of publication, House of the Dragon has not yet been renewed for Season 3).

HBO renewed House of the Dragon in August 2022, just days after the series premiere’s ratings broke records for the premium cable channel. The show follows the events of Martin’s book, Fire & Blood.

Here’s everything we know so far about House of the Dragon Season 2.

Is there a House of the Dragon Season 2 trailer?

The trailer opens with Rhaenyra sounding regal as she says in voice over, “The Targaryen who sits the Iron Throne is not just a king or a queen. They are a protector of the realm. Now I find myself in an impossible position.”

Rhaenyra is now calling the greens (the Hightowers) “the enemy” who “usurped [her] throne,” and Daemon declares to Rhaenys (Eve Best) that they’re “going to King’s Landing.” The vicious Aegon says “f**k dignity! I want revenge,” though what or who he wants revenge over isn’t clear, but Aegon has ever needed to give himself a reason to be violent.

The great houses of Westeros rally for a cause, but it’s not revealed who they’re marching for. The trailer implies that they’re supporting the greens when Daemon says, “I did not think they would be so eager to die.” That could be an editing trick and not an actual response to the marching of the banners. The war will be fought by land, sea, and air thanks to the Sea Snake’s fleet (led by Steve Touissant‘s Lord Corlys Velaryon) that has pledged loyalty to Rhaenyra and the family dragons. But as always with Game of Thrones, war is also fought politically — and often through dirty means.

As Rhaenys teased in the previous dueling trailers, “There is no war more hateful to the gods than a war between kin. And no war so bloody as a war between dragons.”

Check out the full House of the Dragon Season 2 trailer above to see Rhaenys and Aemond fighting on dragon back and more fantastical, dramatic intrigue.

When will House of the Dragon Season 2 premiere?

House of the Dragon Season 2 will premiere sometime on Sunday, June 16 at 9/8c on HBO and will stream simultaneously on Max. One episode will come out per week.

What will be the plot of House of the Dragon Season 2?

While the showrunners are pretty tight-lipped about the new storyline, the showrunner Ryan Condal said that fans can expect a lot of new characters this season. He said, “We are thrilled to be shooting again with members of our original family as well as new talents on both sides of the camera. All your favorite characters will soon be conspiring at the council tables, marching with their armies and riding their dragons into battle. We can’t wait to share what we have in store.” Season 2 will also finally see some dragons, five new ones, to be exact.

There will be eight episodes this season.

Who is in the House of the Dragon Season 2 cast?

Season 2 will feature Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D’Arcy, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans. Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, and Matthew Needham are also slated to return.

The new cast for Season 2 are Gayle Rankin as Alys Rivers, Freddie Fox as Ser Gwayne Hightower, Abubakar Salim as Alyn of Hull, and Simon Russell Beale as Ser Simon Strong, in addition to Clinton Liberty as Addam of Hull, Jamie Kenna as Ser Alfred Broome, Kieran Bew as Hugh, Tom Bennett as Ulf, Tom Taylor as Lord Cregan Stark, and Vincent Regan as Ser Rickard Thorne.

Who is the showrunner for Season 2?

In August 2022, Miguel Sapochnik announced that he would remain executive producer of House of the Dragon but was stepping down as the show’s co-showrunner, leaving Ryan Condal to oversee the series solo. “It was incredibly tough to decide to move on, but I know that it is the right choice for me, personally and professionally,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, veteran Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor joined the production to serve as executive producer and to helm episodes of Season 2. “It’s a pleasure and an honor to be back at HBO, immersing myself in the world of the Targaryens,” Taylor said in his statement. “Returning to Westeros will be a huge undertaking, and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

Co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik has stepped down to work on other projects with HBO. He will still be credited as an executive producer.

He shared in a statement, “Working within the GOT universe for the past few years has been an honor and a privilege, especially spending the last two with the amazing cast and crew of House of the Dragon. I am so proud of what we accomplished with Season One and overjoyed by the enthusiastic reaction of our viewers. It was incredibly tough to decide to move on, but I know that it is the right choice for me, personally and professionally.”

How long has Season 2 been planned?

“Because of the incredibly demanding production schedule of the show, facets of the show have to overlap with one another, which means that we were writing Season 2 long before they ever announced it, while we were in [post-production] in Season 1,” Ryan Condal told Variety in October 2023. “So we really have to storm right into the making of Season 2 now in order to keep pace with our fans’ healthy appetites for material and HBO’s need and desire to release the show in a reasonable timeframe from season to season.”

What will Season 2 be about?

After the events of House of the Dragon’s first-season finale, the Targaryen civil war known as the “Dance of the Dragons” has begun in earnest, and Condal told The Sunday Times that fans could expect more action and less character-building in Season 2. “We will get to the spectacle,” he said (per IndieWire). “But you have to understand these people’s complexities before they’re thrown into war.”

He added that Season 2 “will hit the rhythms people came to expect from the middle run of Game of Thrones, but it will have been earned, and viewers will feel the tragedies because we put the work in.”

Where will Season 2 take place?

“The show definitely has to expand its scope in the second season,” Condal added in his Variety interview. “We’ve lived a good bit in three different worlds through this show: King’s Landing, Dragonstone, and Driftmark. I think those will continue to be the home bases for the show. But a war is coming that requires allegiances from different kingdoms and armies all over the map of Westeros. I don’t think we’re going to get quite as vast as the original Game of Thrones did in its final analysis. But there are definitely many more new worlds to come, and new worlds that you haven’t necessarily seen in the original show, either.”

Will the book’s infamous “Blood and Cheese” plotline show up on-screen?

In November 2022, House of the Dragon writer Sara Hess indicated to Variety that the book’s infamous “Blood and Cheese” plot line — a revenge scheme against Alicent (Olivia Cooke) for the death of Rhaenyra’s son Lucerys (Elliot Grihault) — would play out on screen. “We are currently writing the finale of Season 2,” Hess said. “I don’t think you will be disappointed.”

What sort of new characters will we see?

In the season finale, Rhaenyra (Emma D’Arcy) sends her son Jacaerys (Harry Collett) away on dragon back to ask Cregan Stark, head of House Stark and Lord of Winterfell, to join her side in the war to come. “We will cast Cregan Stark at some point, but no comment otherwise,” Condal told Variety.

The showrunner was also cagey about whether and when we’ll see Daeron Targaryen, Alicent’s fourth child.

“He does exist,” Condal said. “No worries, everybody. … It’s not our modern day, where if you had a 6-year-old, you would FaceTime them every day and see how they’re doing and write letters. He’s there. That’s the fact. When he is relevant to be mentioned — and he will be — he will be mentioned.”

Will there be a House of the Dragon Season 3?

With ratings for House of the Dragon such as they are, HBO would be more foolish than Vaemond Velaryon not to renew the show for Season 3. And that’s a good thing, considering Martin says there’s much more story to cover. “It is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish,” he wrote on his blog in October.

House of the Dragon, Season 2 Premiere, Sunday, June 16, 9/8c, HBO, Streaming on Max